Part 74 (1/2)

The house was brilliant. The orchestra was playing the overture.

”I wish Mr. Shakspeare would write a new play,” grumbled Sidney. ”All these revivals make him lazy. Heavens! what his fees must tot up to! If I were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, I should no more survive the fifth act than most of the characters. Why don't they brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?”

”Yes, I suppose you blessed Mr. Leon when you got his telegram,” said Esther. ”What a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!”

”Awful!” admitted Sidney gravely. ”Besides, it interferes with my work.”

”Work?” said Addie. ”You know you only work by sunlight.”

”Yes, that's the best of my profession--in England. It gives you such opportunities of working--at other professions.”

”Why, what do you work at?” inquired Esther, laughing.

”Well, there's amus.e.m.e.nt, the most difficult of all things to achieve!

Then there's poetry. You don't know what a dab I am at rondeaux and barcarolles. And I write music, too, lovely little serenades to my lady-loves and reveries that are like dainty pastels.”

”All the talents!” said Addie, looking at him with a fond smile. ”But if you have any time to spare from the curling of your lovely silken moustache, which is entirely like a delicate pastel, will you kindly tell me what celebrities are present?”

”Yes, do,” added Esther, ”I have only been to two first nights, and then I had n.o.body to point out the lions.”

”Well, first of all I see a very celebrated painter in a box--a man who has improved considerably on the weak draughtsmans.h.i.+p displayed by Nature in her human figures, and the amateurishness of her glaring sunsets.”

”Who's that?” inquired Addie and Esther eagerly.

”I think he calls himself Sidney Graham--but that of course is only a _nom de pinceau_.”

”Oh!” said, the girls, with a reproachful smile.

”Do be serious!” said Esther. ”Who is that stout gentleman with the bald head?” She peered down curiously at the stalls through her opera-gla.s.s.

”What, the lion without the mane? That's Tom Day, the dramatic critic of a dozen papers. A terrible Philistine. Lucky for Shakspeare he didn't flourish in Elizabethan times.”

He rattled on till the curtain rose and the hushed audience settled down to the enjoyment of the tragedy.

”This looks as if it is going to be the true Hamlet,” said Esther, after the first act.

”What do you mean by the true Hamlet?” queried Sidney cynically.

”The Hamlet for whom life is at once too big and too little,” said Esther.

”And who was at once mad and sane,” laughed Sidney. ”The plain truth is that Shakspeare followed the old tale, and what you take for subtlety is but the blur of uncertain handling. Aha! You look shocked. Have I found your religion at last?”

”No; my reverence for our national bard is based on reason,” rejoined Esther seriously. ”To conceive Hamlet, the typical nineteenth-century intellect, in that bustling picturesque Elizabethan time was a creative feat bordering on the miraculous. And then, look at the solemn inexorable march of destiny in his tragedies, awful as its advance in the Greek dramas. Just as the marvels of the old fairy-tales were an instinctive prevision of the miracles of modern science, so this idea of destiny seems to me an instinctive antic.i.p.ation of the formulas of modern science. What we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness and free will.”

”What you want to-night, Miss Ansell, is black coffee,” said Sidney, ”and I'll tell the attendant to get you a cup, for I dragged you away from dinner before the crown and climax of the meal; I have always noticed myself that when I am interrupted in my meals, all sorts of bugbears, scientific or otherwise, take possession of my mind.”

He called the attendant.

”Esther has the most nonsensical opinions,” said Addie gravely. ”As if people weren't responsible for their actions! Do good and all shall be well with thee, is sound Bible teaching and sound common sense.”

”Yes, but isn't it the Bible that says, 'The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the teeth of the children are set on edge'?” Esther retorted.